All Quiet on the Homefront... When Outside My Mind

As typical of Sunday and Monday nights, not one single person has drunkenly wandered my way. Maybe they've been reading my blog and are afraid I will show their idiocy (and probably mine, too) for the world to see. And when I say world I mean the few people that read the blogs. Just wanted to clear that up. Anyway. It has been quiet.

In fact, it's unnervingly quiet. It's almost as if it's the calm before the storm and this upcoming weekend could get slightly out of control. It's really hit or miss during the week but tonight it's... dead. Even the planes aren't landing as frequently. Wow. Monday really is a terrible day, isn't it? Poor guy. Though at least he hooks us up with being that extra day off on holiday weekends. Ok, Monday. You're back in the club.

See, this is what happens when nothing happens. (Deep, hunh?) I get inside my head and I bounce around like hail forming in a storm cloud until I finally reach that tipping point where I'm just too heavy to bounce around and plunge towards some unsuspecting windshield. Everything cracks, spider-webs into random patterns and lines.

As much as that quiet can be detrimental to my mental health, I still am glad for it. There are just some nights where I want some damn peace and quiet. If I'm patient, I get that peace and quiet. It's a nice give and take thing we got going on over here.

I absolutely love the area I live in, despite some of the brazen antics and lack of paying attention on the "out of South Parkers" that fail to realize when they leave the bar that, oh man, people live here, too?! And it' s not just the lunatics that are drunk on one of the 4.2 trillion kinds of beers at Hamilton's (by the way, my "calm before the storm" theory was spot on- check out the bar's homepage and what's coming up this weekend); it's also the people that fail to park their cars with respect to the people that live in the area, too. I have no problem letting the commercial world spin on it's greedy mindf*** axis but at least be aware that you're not the only world spinning, alright?

Well, what was intended to be a love-fest for the little corner of the world I live in has become a bit angsty so let me bring it back to the softer side with a little edge thrown in for seasoning.

I haven't had the best of luck in the last few months. I've made mistakes, a few major ones that I'm currently suffering greatly for, and a few things have happened to me that were completely unnecessary. I have had a few decent ups but a majority of my days have been very low. And when I come home to my apartment, I know two very distinct and opposite things. First, I know I am going to be alone. Second, however, I can't get enough of my neighborhood and my apartment. I truly believe I am lucky to live here. Through all of the hardships, I have been terribly afraid I'm going to lose the apartment and end up somewhere nowhere near as great as here. Such a sad prospect.

But things will turn around. I just have to let the bad things tire themselves out. But in times of stress, I step out on Beech Street and peer down at Balboa Park, maybe 4 or 5 blocks, and I can't help but smile. The view is very calming with the trees lining the street and it just dead-ends into green.

There is a line in a Toad the Wet Sprocket song that talks about home in the sense that it's "not the place where you live, but the place where you belong." I do not just live in South Park here in San Diego, I belong here.

Comments

Way to use that HTML, bro. Posts without HTML are like pesto without garlic--good enough, but missing the zing. Kudos.

I've got to give it to you for the zen-like calm you're radiating out of that bar-top apartment, too. It ain't easy, when you're "in the suck" (as my roommate so adroitly puts it) to see the end of said suck. The aforementioned zen comes from your seeming ability to find a sense of belonging in and amidst all that suck. Like some sort of thousand-year-old guru sitting cross-legged in the middle of a monsoon and getting the joke that nobody else is hearing.

"See, this is what happens when nothing happens." A variation on refriedgringo's frequent conclusion. Check out his blogs in Baja, for more perspective :)

When you are young, it is common to suffer from this kind of general malaise, when either too much or too little is happening--I understand. And perhaps you have had too many clopens and splifts, too? Moving can stir up all kinds of stuff.

(Whips out prescription pad): A small bottle of fine, homegrown sense of community feeling:

Thanks for the support, kids. Especially after knowing all but one of you for less than a week. There are just too many trees in what people tell me is a forest and obviously I don't see it. But it's too damn sunny here in San Diego for it to be this way for long. Just have to open my eyes a little bit.

While I know things will be better soon, it is difficult to be unsucked when in the suck.